For a few years now, I have been using both Ulysses and Bear for different functions. General note-taking was done in Bear, and my blogging and gaming was done in Ulysses. There was a little overlap, with interesting articles and ideas being saved in Bear and not in Ulysses. I like both apps a great deal, and like features from each in different ways. But I started thinking about whether I could use one app or the other, and not both. That had led me to what I am doing now: evaluating whether I can use Bear for all my writing and note-taking, and not use Ulysses at all.

Let me rewind a year or so ago. I was burned a few times by Ulysses and their sync capability. While both Ulysses and Bear use iCloud to sync between devices, there were a few times when Ulysses was just wipe itself on my Mac, and I would have to wait overnight for it to recover all my writing from iCloud.

It seemed like there was one month where it happened 4 times, and I really, really considered ditching Ulysses. And that stinks, because I love the app. It is the best app I found for sheer writing in Markdown. When I looked at moving everything to Bear, though, something gave me pause. No, I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I believe it had to do with Bear locking up with the large number of notes. I didn’t write down the details, so I can’t say exactly what happened.

Anyway, Ulysses seemed to fix something because I have not had any issues since then. But recently I have been looking at all my subscription costs, and came across the bills for Ulysses ($50/year) and Bear ($15/year). Not terrible but not so great.

I just noticed on the Bear Pricing page that the price for the Pro version is now $30/year. Still not bad.

I also realized that one of the features I liked in Ulysses was the clicky-click ability to upload articles from Ulysses directly into Medium and Ghost. Well, as I write now on Write.as, that feature no longer applies. So—can I move my writing completely over to Bear?

Right now I have about 5,100 notes in Bear. I can see that easily being at least 10,000, and maybe 15,000 or more when I move everything over. I have seen online that some users have had no issues at 10,000 notes, so I am still worried a tad. I have seen my iPad lock up in Bear for a couple minutes when I have moved a lot over on my Mac, and (I think) Bear on the iPad is syncing up. If that is just a price to pay while I move things over, fine. But it is a deal breaker if it continues.

So—has anyone done this kind of evaluation? Have you had a large database of notes in Bear and seen any issues? I am really curious to hear any feedback!

Marc #tech #writing #gaming #bear #ulysses

It seems a cliche to hear that the Internet is dead now, but I have come to realize that statement really is true. What we knew as the Internet has been taken over by the corporations and tech giants. Many people talk about the “dead Internet” or the “death of the Internet,” but what do I mean? I mean this: the Internet that we knew back from the late 90s through the 2000s is now just an historical footnote. The Internet today is controlled by large corporations, and especially the tech giants—Google, Meta, Apple, Amazon, and X (or whatever Elon Musk is calling Twitter today). The idea that anyone could throw up a website, start creating content or selling a product and make money is just not real anymore.

Why is this? A lot of people have written about this, so it is not a startling revelation that the tech bros have put a stranglehold on the Internet by controlling what people see. They have done everything they can to keep users within their walled gardens, their silos of “information,” for one reason: to make obscene amounts of money.

Their algorithms feed you what they want you to see, not what you want. And that is one way they make their money, by targeted ads. The other way is to track literally everything you do, so they can sell that money to anyone who will pay—from sketchy corporations to our own government.

Make no mistake: money and greed killed the Internet. It did not turn into this utopia of information, where democracy flourished. Instead, it has turned into this slick, artificially controlled place where oligarchs decide what you see and even influence what you think. People who do not have our best interests at heart, but their own.

And that makes me very sad. I remember the Internet in its early days, and the excitement of discovering new things to see, and even getting out there myself. Now I am just angry when I see the shit that is forced on us. And that makes me even more sad.

But I think I have found a place where I see hope. That place is known as the Fediverse. I’ll write more about this in the coming weeks, but basically the Fediverse is a peek into what the Internet used to be, not what it is now.

The Fediverse is really a collection of servers that are usually free, use open source software and not owned by any corporation. They usually have communities that have built up around them, and are policed by themselves—their own community—rather than some corporation.

The best part is that these servers talk to each other, letting you have account on one server, such as a Mastodon server, and follow a user on another server. You choose who to follow, not someone else. You see the information you want, from across all the servers that are talking to each other. This is what some people are calling the “social web,” as opposed to the “social media” that we have come to despise.

Why does this give me hope? Because Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Google are not controlling what I see. I am. And so can you. The Fediverse is open and raw, with all of the flaws that the Internet had in the early days. And that is the way I like it.

Marc #deadinternet #fighttheoligarchs #socialmedia #socialweb #fediverse

I’ve tried others, and I keep coming back to the simplicity of Apple apps. Everyone has a number of apps that they use everyday to help them get by—email and calendar apps, maybe a note taking tool, a task management app and a few other functions. There are tons of apps out there that meet these needs, and I have looked at a lot of them. I was searching for the perfect ones—and in all cases but one, I just went back to Apple.

What I Tried

I don’t known how many apps I downloaded and tried out, especially for task management. Really, I don’t know. Lots. It was almost an obsession.

My heaviest tools/functions I use on a daily basis are email, task management, note taking and calendar management. Other functions I need, but not as frequently include a password management and something to see the weather.

For a long time I was just using Gmail and a web browser for my email. It was simple, platform independent and just worked. Then I started using Spark, and I really liked it. It had a lot of functions that I used—not so much the AI and other fancy bells & whistles, but just good old fashioned email management. Unfortunately, it also came with a $50/year price tag.

I also started using Fantastical for my calendar. It worked on my devices, and had some nice calendar management features. Again, I didn’t use a lot of the fancy tools, but it did what I needed. I never signed up for the paid account, but the tool did cost to download.

For note taking, I looked around quite a bit, but eventually found Bear. It is Apple-only, but it really does everything I need. I have been templed by a lot of the new generation of fancy note apps, but have stuck with my Bear. It costs, too—$15/year.

Task management is where I really went crazy. Boy, did I. Eventually I settled on Todoist. Todoist really scratched my itch for managing my tasks and turned out to be a really great tool. It’s free, but I paid the $48/year for the Pro account.

I also used Bitwarden for my password management (although not like I really should—I just listed my passwords in a secure list, not integrated with my apps or browsers). I used Weather Underground for weather, too. And yes—that had an annual price tag as well.

Are you sensing a trend here?

What I Use Now—And What I Found

What I found was that in every case but one I didn’t need to be shelling out over $100 each year for apps subscriptions.

I got on a kick of reducing the money I was spending every month and part of that was my app subscriptions. That led me eventually to reevaluate all of the apps I was using and see if I could get to a zero cost solution. What I found was that Apple had apps that met my needs, and they were all there on all my devices already—for free.

The first app I looked at was Todoist. Now Todoist is a really wonderful app, and that caused pain my heart to let them go. But when I took a look at Apple Reminders, I saw that it had really come a long way. In fact, it did everything I needed. It may not have all of the functions that other people need—but it did what I needed it to do. I did have to recreate all of my tasks from Todoist in Reminders, but I took that opportunity to clean out any outdated tasks and set things up for how I needed them now.

Then I looked at Spark. I had less of an emotional attachment to Spark, so when I looked at Apple Mail, it wasn’t that hard to switch. My biggest need was that it worked as a front end for Startmail, which I switched to instead of Gmail (more on that in another rant). I found that it does that perfectly. Again—it may not meet everyone’s needs, but it meets mine. The only issue that I found is that Mail does not have a Share function like their other apps—I like being able to send an email to another app (like Bear).

I then looked at Fantastical. Again—Apple Calendar does what I need, and just works. One thing I am really liking in Calendar, too is the native integration with Reminders. Yes, Fantastical did that, too, but it was a kludgy integration, where this is all native. Goodbye, Fantastical.

I found the same result when I looked at Weather Underground, too. Apple Weather just works, and is already there. Honestly, I really didn’t see any difference.

Password management was bit more involved. I had been using both Bitwarden and Apple Keychain, but when Apple came out with Passwords, I finally had to make the break and switch everything to that app. It integrates with all my other apps, especially the ones in the Apple ecosystem—and it’s free. Migrating my passwords (and cleaning them up) was a huge chore, but once I was done, it was worth it.

The one app I did NOT migrate to is Apple Notes. This is just a personal preference thing, but I love my Markdown writing. Notes does not support Markdown, Bear does. I also like the way that Bear uses tags instead of folders. That lets me have a note be found through multiple paths, not just one specific folder. And hey, I like the Bear interface better. So I’m sticking with Bear and not moving to Notes. That may change in the future, but not right now.

What You Should Use

Obviously, you should use what works for you. You do you. But I do recommend trying out the default Apple suite if you are an Apple user. Yes, this only applies to people that have sold their souls to the cult of Apple, but if you are a Mac/iOS user, these apps really do work, and you already have them.

And that is a big point I want to make: these apps are already there. Whether you see them as free or that you have already paid for them is up to you. Let’s just say that you do not have to pay any more for them.

The other point I want to make is that they just work. Unless you are a power user who needs a lot of special functions and integrations, these apps have a simplicity that is just great. Say what you want about Apple, but they do have a way of making great user interfaces.

Well, that’s my story. I hate being a fanboy and all that, but their products just work for me. I left the farm and explored new lands, but the prodigal son returned to Apple. And yes, I’m loving it.

Marc #productivity #tech #apple #bear

(This was originally published on Medium on February 17, 2025).

One of the attractions to Substack is that it is free. Another is a ready-made audience and community. But the rise of extremism and the investment by Marc Andreessen and Company has led me to rethink being there.

Why I Moved to Substack In the First Place

The original reason I moved to Substack to save money. Doing the self-hosting thing with WordPress had just gotten too expensive: hosting, email newsletter service, plugins for everything—it all added up. Substack was free.

I’m not looking to make any money from my writing, or sell anything, so this seemed like a good fit. I’m still in the process of dropping my hosting account with Bluehost, and getting my domains moved from them to Namecheap. That is taking longer than I expected, but I’m making progress.

I moved two blogs to Substack, and two over to Ghost. I didn’t want to pay for that, but Ghost had the features I needed for those blogs.

The Current Environment

But I have encountered two things that I did not expect. They both come from politics. One was the constant outrage in the feed you see when you log in or open the Substack app. The second was investment by the tech bro Marc Andreessen.

Warning, some politics: Throughout my life I considered myself a moderate Republican. Liberal on things like personal freedoms and conservative on defense and government spending. No big deal. Nothing extreme.

But I changed from Republican to Independent the day after Trump got the presidential nomination in 2016. He just did not represent anything that I thought I believed in. Ever since then, he and the people around him have just solidified that decision. I do not recognize anything about the Republican Party that I knew at this point. Maybe I just didn’t want to see it. I don’t know.

OK, back to my point. As I started using Substack, I would like various things, make a few comments—and their algorithm would feed me more politics. More outrage. I just got tired of it. Yes, as a good citizen, I should fight for whatever I believe in, but there comes a point where you just get exhausted. Maybe that’s what they want.

And then Andreessen & Horowitz and their investment group provided a massive cash influx to Substack. I get the need for Substack to have investors and be a successful business, but when you look at the way these tech giants are controlling the information space all across the board, you have to have a serious concern.

Substack has already had a track record of amplifying far right voices, and that in itself was making me rethink about my future on the platform. But I know that this investment will come with a cost. It may very well be a very real fee, as they try to keep Substack on a profitable basis, but it will definitely come with control. These people are very open about their disdain for democracy and their belief that they are the ones who should control the country and its citizens.

I don’t need that shit.

What I’m Leaving Behind

So I’m moving off Substack. I have set up an account on write.as, and am pretty happy with it there. Aside from the platform itself being really what I wanted, technically, it also does not have this feed shoved in my face every time I login. I really like that. I can read what others have written and published, but when I want—it is not the first thing I see.

But… I will be leaving some things behind that I will miss. There are a few creators that I follow that I really like. I hate to lose their content (even if it is paid). I’m looking for alternate ways to continue to follow them that do not use Substack.

I’ll also be honest: other platforms will probably cost money, too. Yes, I will miss the free part. Finding another platform has been pretty complex as well. I’m just not finding a free (or even cheap) platform that meets all of the needs that my other blogs have. (That search will be in a different article).

I’m still looking for a home for my other blog that I have on Substack. I haven’t found one that meets all of the needs for that one, so we’ll see. That is turning into a more complex task than I originally thought.

But more to come on this. I am staying on Medium for my main blog, and it will be a mirror of my write.as one. We’ll see where else I take my other blogs.

Marc #blogging #tech #substack #write.as #medium

I cancelled all my social media accounts due to privacy concerns, and have never been happier.

What I Wanted From Social Media

I originally got on MySpace (yeah, I know), and then Facebook just to keep up with friends and family. Then I got on Twitter and Instagram for fun. I even got on Tumblr for the pics. It was great.

Then I started seeing them as ways to advertise my writing. I had pages for my various websites, Instagram accounts, the works. I was using tools to manage my online posts, tracking engagement, etc.

Still, over time I stopped being active on Facebook and Twitter, and even on Instagram and Tumblr. This really hit during the 2016 election, and I never really went back. When Threads came out, I got on there and actually was pretty active. It was a good way to connect with people who had the same general mindset, culturally and politically.

Why I Left

Last year, I started reading more about what all the tech giants were doing with the data they were collecting on all of us—especially Meta and Google. You know the saying… “when a product is free, YOU are the product…” Well, you better believe it. These people are making billions of dollars from everything we post, from emails to social media comments to our stored contacts.

And they are doing this without our real permission. Yes, they include some misleading comments in their Privacy Policy and Terms, but when was the last time you really read and understand those? These corporations count on that—and take advantage of it.

On top of the gross hypocrisy of the tech giants, there is the fact that social media had just become a cesspool pool of hatred and misinformation. There has been a great deal written about that fact, and how it is tearing this country apart, so I really don’t need to go through it here. I just decided that I didn’t need that toxicity in my life anymore.

And now that Trump 2.0 has taken office, you see the tech giants bending the knee to him to the point where Meta has said outright that they were disbanding their fact-checking group and forcing users to see more political content. (Never mind that since Elon Musk bought Twitter, he has turned it into a haven for right wing extremism and hatred).

It is just not worth it.

What Next?

I dunno. As much as I want to be lured back in to draw people to my writing, I have to stick to my decision that if I was going to start writing again, it would don’t be to make money or stress about how many people read what I write.

I do miss updates from family and friends, but if I was being honest… I was not really reading that much about them on social media anyway. I’m really trying to stay with my goal of simply contacting people directly. Even if that means texting, I want to stay in touch with the people I care about the old fashioned way—not through something where Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk or Alphabet, Inc make billions off of me.

So I have cancelled the social media accounts that I could. My next step is to get rid of my Google accounts. I have cancelled the few that I had, with the exception of one main one. That is taking much more effort, but I will get there eventually. I’ve just had it, and am doing my very small part to give these assholes the finger.

Marc #socialmedia #privacy #tech

(This was originally published on Medium on February 10, 2025).

During Lent this past year, I really thought hard about what I wanted to give up. What I finally decided on was clutter. It was pretty damn life changing. All my life I would randomly give things up for Lent, like desserts, etc. One year I gave up meat (I’m Catholic—I ate fish). Later, in my single days I would give up alcohol just to make sure that I could.

But this time I wanted to do something different. The more I thought about it, the more it just fit to give up clutter. And by clutter, I meant all clutter in my life. Physical clutter. Emotional clutter. Financial clutter. Time clutter. I went through all aspects of my life and looked for things to ruthlessly clean out. Things that I did not need or even worse, brought me unhappiness.

What I Decluttered

So I started with physical items. My wife and I have a storage unit full of items that we had to put somewhere when we got married. We’ve been talking for 14 years about getting rid of stuff, but never got around to it.

Well, now I did. I went through all of my stuff, and then through “our” stuff. I sold off 6 bankers boxes of CDs and 30 bankers boxes of books to used book stores. It was hard to let go of them—especially the books, but I felt like I had walked outside into fresh air.

Next I looked at emotional and mental clutter. I looked hard at relationships that, as they say, gave me joy, and ones that did not. I kept the ones that I found I really cherished, and let go of the ones that I did not. I really did not tell anyone we wouldn’t be friends or anything like that, but I did just stop associating with people that brought drama or unhappiness to my life.

I have always been something of a productivity nerd, but I did take another look at how I was managing my time and activities. I decided what my real priorities were and arranged my task management to reflect them—and cut out the things that did not.

One of the big things I did give up for most of the year was writing. Blogging is wrapped up in a number of areas that I wanted to declutter. It affects time, money and just plain stress over meeting self-imposed deadlines and commitments.

Finally, it took me over the course of the year, but I really looked hard at any financial clutter I had in my life. A huge chunk of my decluttering was moving off my old self-hosted Wordpress sites and moving to Medium, Substack and Ghost. Another cost I cut was the monthly subscription to Adobe products. The costs for doing things the way I had done them for years was just unjustifiable. Removing these costs from my life was really just smart economically, but it had a very positive impact on my mental health.

I did most of this decluttering over Lent itself, but it turned into a year-long way of life. Now, when I want to buy something, I ask myself if I really need it, and what can I get rid of in return. When I look at any of the things I already have or do, I ask that question as well: do I really need it, and can I get rid of it? As I said: it was, well, liberating.

What I Learned

Letting go of things that I had carried around for years because of my own laziness, my own fears, and worst of all—my own ego—left me feeling like a huge burden had been lifted from my soul. I kept in touch with my wife and some close friends about my progress, and even the act of explaining what I was doing and why I was doing it made me feel like some weight had been removed from my mind. It felt great. It still does.

What I learned is that while minimalism isn’t everything it is cracked up to be. You don’t have to get rid of everything in your life to feel better. Just being honest with yourself and letting go of the things that you just do not need really can help with stress, health and your life in general.

Maybe the hardest lesson for me to learn was that it was my own ego that was leading me to hold on to many of my old books. Books that I kept around because they made me feel smart, an aspect I wanted to project to other people—and not because I really needed them.

The other lesson is just one of fear. Fear of loss, maybe of regret. Personal items that I have from my parents or old friends—those were hard to let go of. I’m still working through that part, but I’m getting there.

OK, It took me a while to get this down in writing. Yes, I am getting back to writing after taking most of the year off, but I am being much more deliberate about it. I am still facing challenges with clutter when I want to buy something, or someone asks me to do something, but I am getting a lot better at telling myself and others “no.”

I really recommend you go through something similar to what I did. You don’t have to be Catholic, and you don’t have to give everything you own away. It doesn’t have to be this complex thing. Just start with a few things, make some decisions and then follow through with letting them go. Trust me—you’ll feel better.

Marc #life #minimalism #decluttering

(This was originally published on Medium on January 6, 2025.)

Right now, I've been moving off of a self-hosted site on Bluehost, and got two sites hosted on Ghost and two on Substack. Ghost has raised their entry tier from $108/year to $180/year without notice, and it seems Substack is getting taken over by the far right. That is why I started looking for another platform.

We'll see how write.as works out. One thing it does not have is the ability to host static pages—I need that for at least one of my blogs. But the others may work out here, especially if I can add additional blogs for a small fee.

I am also intrigued by this Fediverse and social web thing. We'll see how that works out, too—I cancelled all my social media accounts for a reason. But... we'll see.

Anyway, more to come.

Marc